CHRIS SEARLE welcomes a startling vision of contemporary Newport from a veteran photographer of the British working class
Old people are everywhere. There are currently more than 11 million in Britain over retirement age, 20 per cent of the total population, and more than a million of them are aged 85 and over.
These are large numbers, more than enough to suggest that old people should exert a forceful presence in British society.
Unfortunately, they are mostly invisible, except as problems (“bed-blockers”), victims (care-home scandals) or figures of fun (The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, New Tricks or Quartet).
ALAN MORRISON recommends a consummate, heart-warming collection about a working-class upbringing in the industrial north-east
Two inspring books — that’s your New Year’s musing from me on January 2 2026
RUTH AYLETT reviews two collections of outright political poetry
ANDY CROFT rallies poets to the impossible task of speaking truth to a tin-eared politician


